This volume provides a theoretically and empirically-grounded study of the significance of landscape in the experience of Christian pilgrimage across different denominations and its intersection with cultural heritage and tourism. The book focuses on pilgrimages to Meteora (Greece), Subiaco (Italy) and the Isle of Man. These are each sites of scenic beauty that boast a rich heritage associated respectively to Greek Orthodox, Roman Catholic and Ecumenical/ Protestant denominations. The stud...

Human beings are grieving animals. ‘Consolation’, or an attempt to assuage grief, is an age-old response to loss which has various expressions in different cultural contexts. Over the past century, consolation has dropped off the West’s cultural radar. The contributions to this volume highlight this neglect of consolation in popular and academic discourses and explore the usefulness of the concept of consolation for analysing spatio-temporal constellations.Consolationscapes in ...

The fields of gender and religious studies have often been criticized for neglecting to engage with one another, and this volume responds to this dearth of interaction by placing the fields in an intimate dialogue. Taking a multi-disciplinary approach and drawing on feminist scholarship, the book undertakes theoretical and empirical explorations of relational and co-constitutive encounters of gender and religion. Through varied perspectives, the chapters address three interrelated themes: ...

Death is at once a universal and everyday, but also an extraordinary experience in the lives of those affected. Death and bereavement are thereby intensified at (and frequently contained within) certain sites and regulated spaces, such as the hospital, the cemetery and the mortuary. However, death also affects and unfolds in many other spaces: the home, public spaces and places of worship, sites of accident, tragedy and violence. Such spaces, or Deathscapes, are intensely private and perso...

In the late 1990s, there was a distinct rise in interest in the non-profit sector, and in retailing and consumption. Drawing together these two concerns this book provides a comprehensive and international account of the retail charity sector.Charity shops are now significant occupiers of the UK high street, and are becoming familiar sites of consumption in the USA, Australia, Canada and Ireland. This volume provides the first overview of the history and development of the charity ...

This collection draws on the Mobilities approach to look afresh at notions of the sacred where they intersect with people, objects and other things on the move. Consideration of a wide range of spiritual meanings and practices also sheds light on the motivations and experiences associated with particular mobilities. Drawing on rich, situated case studies, this multi-disciplinary collection discusses what mobility in the social sciences, arts and humanities can tell us about movements and j...

This open access book focuses on migrant and minority cemetery needs through the conceptual lens of the mobilities of the living and the dead. In doing so, the book brings migration and mobility studies into much-needed dialogue with death studies to explore the symbolically and politically important issue of culturally inclusive spaces of cemeteries and crematoria for migrants and established minorities. The book addresses majority and minority cemetery and crematoria provisions and pract...

From the local to the global level, religion is – more than ever – an important and hotly debated part of modern life in the twenty-first century.From silver rings to ringtones and from clubs to headscarves, we often find the cultural role and discussion of religion in unexpected ways.Now in its second edition, Religion: The Basics remains the best introduction to religion and contemporary culture available. The new edition has been fully revised and updated, and i...

This Reader brings together a selection of key writings to explore the relationship between religion, media and cultures of everyday life. It provides an overview of the main debates and developments in this growing field, focusing on four major themes:Religion, spirituality and consumer cultureMedia and the transformation of religionThe sacred senses: visual, material and audio cultureReligion, and the ethics of media and cult...

As the twenty-first century moves towards its third decade, applied theatre is being shaped by contemporary economic and environmental concerns and is contributing to new conceptual paradigms that influence the ways in which socially engaged art is produced and understood. This collection offers fresh perspectives on the aesthetics, politics and histories of applied theatre. With contributions from leading scholars in the field, the book illuminates theatre in a diverse range of global con...

Narrating Objects, Collecting Stories is a wide-ranging collection of essays exploring the stories that can be told about objects and those who choose to collect them. Examining objects and collecting in different historical, social and institutional contexts, an international, interdisciplinary group of authors consider the meanings and values with which objects are imputed and the processes and implications of collecting. This includes considering the entanglement of objects and...

A people's lifestyle is one thing, their death-style another. The proximity or distance between such styles says much about a society, not least in Britain today. Mors Britannica takes up this style-issue in a society where cultural changes involve distinctions between traditional religion, secularisation, and emergent forms of spirituality, all of which involve emotions, where fear, longing, and a sense of loss rise in waves when death marks the root embodiment of our humanity. T...